Jon Meacham
photo by Damien Donck
Back in April, after learning that former Chattanoogan Jon Meacham had won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2008 Random House biography, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, I raced out to a bookstore the next day to try to buy a copy.
I did find one, too, and it did not even have the words “Pulitzer Prize winner” stamped anywhere on it, as might have been the case if I had waited another week.
Being interested in both history and in current or former Chattanoogans who have distinguished themselves, my ultimate goal was to interview Mr. Meacham for a story about winning the prize. I also hoped to include a few details about the book in my story.
Unfortunately, my efforts to get an interview have been unsuccessful so far. Not only has he probably received plenty of attention regarding the book, but he also has a pretty busy day job as editor of Newsweek magazine, which recently implemented some major format changes.
I first met Mr. Meacham about 1992, although I am not sure he would remember me. We were both covering a speech at the Read House – probably related to the Rotary Club of Chattanooga – and talked briefly as we left.
He was working for the Chattanooga Times, while I was with the Chattanooga Free Press. My father, Dr. Wayne Shearer, was running for a Tennessee state legislature seat, and I believe Mr. Meacham had written some stories related to the race.
As a result, I remember that we talked about the upcoming election during the brief conversation.
I remember thinking that the McCallie School and Sewanee alumnus seemed fairly mature and sharp for a reporter only a year or so out of college.
Unless I have forgotten, we never had another conversation.
After he left the Chattanooga Times, I later read that he had become editor of Newsweek magazine at a very young age. And then he topped that accomplishment off by writing some best-selling history books, including Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship.
I did hear him give a speech related to Winston Churchill at the University of Tennessee in 2006, after I had moved to Knoxville. Unfortunately, his book-signing line after his talk was too long for me to greet him and renew the acquaintance.
As one interested in writing history myself, I wanted to examine his Andrew Jackson book and see what made it a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Probably what helped the book greatly and made it worthy of being considered for the nation’s highest literary prize was that he was able to use new sources and information in the book.
As he writes in his acknowledgments, he was surprised that he found several new archival items. Most notably, he was able to examine and read a private collection of family letters kept by Mrs. John Lawrence Merritt that gave details about President Jackson’s niece by marriage, Emily Donelson.
Much of the book centers on the relationship between Donelson, her husband, Andrew, and President Jackson.
He also says that the unpublished letters in the Benjamin and Gertrude Caldwell Collection at the Hermitage home in Nashville were also helpful.
In David McCullough’s biography on John Adams, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002, Mr. McCullough also writes that he was able to use some new information from letters in a private family collection.
Although the Jackson book to me does not necessarily seem to be a page-turner written in a suspenseful or extremely vivid style, Mr. Meacham does do a good job of coming up with metaphors and other literary devices to describe the nation’s seventh president in a creative and observant way.
For example, early in the book Mr. Meacham writes of Jackson, “He was the most contradictory of men. A champion of extending freedom and democracy to even the poorest of whites, Jackson was an unrepentant slaveholder.
“A sentimental man who rescued an Indian orphan on a battlefield to raise in his home, Jackson was responsible for the removal of Indian tribes from their ancestral lands.”
Mr. Meacham also writes that his attempt with the book was not to produce a scholarly work as an academician would, but rather a biographical and human portrait of Jackson and the other key figures around him.
And the author’s more human presentation of President Jackson as a family man likely helped shed him in slightly new light. That must have also helped Mr. Meacham win the Pulitzer, as Mr. McCullough was also praised for presenting President Adams in a fresher and more positive way.
Mr. Meacham writes that the idea for the book came not because he hails from the same state as President Jackson, but that his former editor at Random House, Jonathan Karp, had first suggested the project to him back in the summer of 2003.
During his research for the book, Mr. Meacham was given a tour of the U.S. capitol and told how it existed during the early 1800s. He also spent three hours touring the White House through the kindness of then-First Lady Laura Bush and learned how it also looked during President Jackson’s time in office.
Mr. Meacham was welcome in the nation’s most prestigious home, and now the former Chattanoogan is a member of the country’s top biographical writers fraternity as well.
Jcshearer2@comcast.net